As New York Considers Banning Bromated Flour, Do You Really Need It Anyway?

The state of New York has moved to ban potassium bromate in flour and dough for pizza as part of the Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, although it’s unclear whether Governor Kathy Hochul will sign the bill passed by the New York State Assembly and Senate.

Potassium bromate is added to some commercial flours to strengthen dough and improve consistency. It can reduce mixing times and boost oven spring. But do pizza makers really need it?

As Joe Pucciarelli, head pizza maker at Extra Extra in Buffalo, New York, explained to WKBW, the additive can result in more predictable dough. “There are days when we mix dough, and it’s 70° one day and 40° the next day, and the doughs are pretty different from day to day,” he said. “Using the chemically altered flours, it would give you much more consistency, where you know what you will get every day.”

However, Extra Extra doesn’t use bromated flour at all, relying instead on a recipe that requires minimal yeast and long fermentation times.

The use of bromate has raised health concerns in other countries. It has reportedly been shown to be a carcinogen in animal studies and is banned in the European Union, Canada and the UK.

According to the late Tom “The Dough Doctor” Lehmann, a longtime pizza dough consultant and contributor to PMQ Pizza before his death in December 2020, there are other solutions to dough issues that don’t require bromate at all.

“At one time, most flours were bromated to some extent, but, due to health concerns, only a few flours are bromated today,” Lehmann wrote for PMQ in 2016. “I don’t recall ever seeing any pizzeria or dough commissary operation that truly needed bromated flour.”

Lehmann continued: “At one time, back when the dough was bulk-fermented, as opposed to being formed into smaller individual dough balls for fermentation, a bromated flour exhibited great performance characteristics. But if you ball your dough for storage (cold fermentation)—the usual practice these days—I seriously doubt you will see any advantage in using a bromated flour. If you do see a difference, take a close look at your dough management procedure. I’ll bet you can find ways to address the problems without the need for bromate or any other dough additive.”

Lehmann also noted that bromate has no effect on the flavor of pizza crust.

If Governor Hochul signs the legislation, distributors will have one year to transition their New York pizzeria clients to unbromated flour. (If she doesn’t sign the bill within 10 days, it automatically becomes law.)